When Dante published his "Inferno," the simplicity of the age accepted
it as a true narrative of his descent into hell.
When the Utopia of Sir Thomas More was first published, it occasioned a
pleasant mistake. This political romance represents a perfect, but
visionary republic, in an island supposed to have been newly discovered
in America. "As this was the age of discovery," says Granger, "the
learned Budæus, and others, took it for a genuine history; and
considered it as highly expedient, that missionaries should be sent
thither, in order to convert so wise a nation to Christianity."
It was a long while after publication that many readers were convinced
that Gulliver's Travels were fictitious.[90]
But the most singular blunder was produced by the ingenious "Hermippus
Redivivus" of Dr. Campbell, a curious banter on the hermetic philosophy,
and the universal medicine; but the grave irony is so closely kept up,
that it deceived for a length of time the most learned. His notion of
the art of prolonging life, by inhaling the breath of young women, was
eagerly credited. A physician, who himself had composed a treatise on
health, was so influenced by it, that he actually took lodgings at a
female boarding-school, that he might never be without a constant supply
of the breath of young ladies. Mr. Thicknesse seriously adopted the
project. Dr. Kippis acknowledged that after he had read the work in his
youth, the reasonings and the facts left him several days in a kind of
fairy land. I have a copy with manuscript notes by a learned physician,
who seems to have had no doubts of its veracity. After all, the
intention of the work was long doubtful; till Dr. Campbell assured a
friend it was a mere jeu-d'esprit; that Bayle was considered as standing
without a rival in the art of treating at large a difficult subject,
without discovering to which side his own sentiments leaned: Campbell
had read more uncommon books than most men, and wished to rival Bayle,
and at the same time to give many curious matters little known.
Palavicini, in his History of the Council of Trent, to confer an honour
on M. Lansac, ambassador of Charles IX. to that council, bestows on him
a collar of the order of Saint Esprit; but which order was not
instituted till several years afterwards by Henry III. A similar
voluntary blunder is that of Surita, in his _Annales de la Corona de
Aragon_. This writer represents, in the battles he describes, many
persons who were not present; and this, merely to confer honour on some
particular families.
Fabiana, quoting a French narrative of travels in Italy, took for the
name of the author the words, found at the end of the title-page,
_Enrichi de deux Listes_; that is, "Enriched with two lists:" on this he
observes, "that Mr. Enriched with two lists has not failed to do that
justice to Ciampini which he merited."[91] The abridgers of Gesner's
Bibliotheca ascribe the romance of Amadis to one _Acuerdo Olvido_;
Remembrance, Oblivion; mistaking the French translator's Spanish motto
on the title-page for the name of the author.
D'Aquin, the French king's physician, in his Memoir on the Preparation
of Bark, takes _Mantissa_, which is the title of the Appendix to the
History of Plants, by Johnstone, for the name of an author, and who, he
says, is so extremely rare, that he only knows him by name.
Lord Bolingbroke imagined, that in those famous verses, beginning with
_Excudent alii_, &c., Virgil attributed to the Romans the glory of
having surpassed the Greeks in historical composition: according to his
idea, those Roman historians whom Virgil preferred to the Grecians were
Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus. But Virgil died before Livy had written his
history, or Tacitus was born.
An honest friar, who compiled a church history, has placed in the class
of ecclesiastical writers Guarini, the Italian poet, on the faith of the
title of his celebrated amorous pastoral, _Il Pastor Fido_, "The
Faithful Shepherd;" our good father imagined that the character of a
curate, vicar, or bishop, was represented in this work.
A blunder has been recorded of the monks in the dark ages, which was
likely enough to happen when their ignorance was so dense. A rector of a
parish going to law with his parishioners about paving the church,
quoted this authority from St. Peter--_Paveant illi, non paveam ego_;
which he construed, _They are to pave the church, not I_. This was
allowed to be good law by a judge, himself an ecclesiastic too.
One of the grossest literary blunders of modern times is that of the
late Gilbert Wakefield, in his edition of Pope. He there takes the
well-known "Song by a Person of Quality," which is a piece of ridicule
on the glittering tuneful nonsense of certain poets, as a serious
composition. In a most copious commentary, he proves that every line
seems unconnected with its brothers, and that the whole reflects
disgrace on its author! A circumstance which too evidently shows how
necessary the knowledge of modern literary history is to a modern
commentator, and that those who are profound in verbal Greek are not the
best critics on English writers.
The Abbé Bizot, the author of the medallic history of Holland, fell into
a droll mistake. There is a medal, struck when Philip II. set forth his
_invincible Armada_, on which are represented the King of Spain, the
Emperor, the Pope, Electors, Cardinals, &c., with their eyes covered
with a bandage, and bearing for inscription this fine verse of
Lucretius:--
O cæcas hominum menteis! O pectora cæca!
The Abbé, prepossessed with the prejudice that a nation persecuted by
the Pope and his adherents could not represent them without some insult,
did not examine with sufficient care the ends of the bandages which
covered the eyes and waved about the heads of the personages represented
on this medal: he rashly took them for _asses' ears_, and as such they
are engraved!
Mabillon has preserved a curious literary blunder of some pious
Spaniards, who applied to the Pope for consecrating a day in honour of
_Saint Viar_. His holiness, in the voluminous catalogue of his saints,
was ignorant of this one. The only proof brought forward for his
existence was this inscription:--